Fonterra's new cheese making equipment arrives at Stanhope site

Fonterra’s growing Stanhope cheese plant has just reached another
key milestone this month. Large pieces of cheese making equipment recently arrived
at site and were put into place by a nearly 200-strong team of contractors.

The new equipment arrived as a rainbow stretched over the Stanhope sky, with the team taking it as a blessing for the remaining construction to come.

The delivery is part of the site’s cheese expansion, which is on track to start making cheese from next year, doubling the site’s cheese processing capability to 80,000 metric tonnes.

Three new milk silos have been installed and several more of the big vessels will be arriving soon for whey processing.

Cheese making vats have also been installed, which turn our farmer’s milk into curd and whey, and a cheddaring machine which develops and knits the curd into our much-loved tasty cheddar.

Fonterra Stanhope Site Manager, Jason Wright says that the expansion is like a giant jigsaw puzzle, with teams working on over 20 different project fronts across the site, all working together to create one piece, readying the site so that it can send even more of Stanhope’s cheese to the world.

“On the day we were set to move the cheese vats in, we were greeted with a rainbow and I’m taking it as a blessing, even if we did have to postpone until the rain quietened down!” says Jason.

“A lot of work has gone into getting us to this stage, with our contractors already clocking over 30,000-man hours on this expansion and we’re just over the halfway mark. They’re pulling out all the stops to get us up and running, and this is a real testament to the team.”

This expansion is being built on the back of unmet global demand for dairy which is growing year on year. It won’t be long until this new cheese plant is up and running, and more of Stanhope’s tasty cheese is enjoyed by Australian’s and the rest of the world.